Kieran Trippier’s free-kick gives Newcastle victory over Aston Villa

As Eddie Howe ran out of players to embrace and, wreathed in smiles, finally walked off the pitch he looked up towards the directors box and blew his wife a kiss.

If she had not already realised it, this was surely the day when Vicki Howe fully understood precisely why her husband wanted to be the manager of Newcastle United.

Three wins in a row have not merely lifted a once apparently doomed side out of the relegation zone but breathed new life into a club transformed under their controversial new Saudi Arabian led ownership.

Played out against a backdrop of vigorously waved black and white flags and a soundtrack alternating between “Eddie Howe’s black and white army” and “Blaydon Races”, this was an afternoon when, despite the chill February rain, anything seemed possible.

Admittedly Newcastle rode their luck a little in the second half but with Kieran Trippier on their side, mid-table seemed to beckon. Trippier always seemed a very decent signing on Newcastle’s part but England’s former Atletico Madrid right-back looks an even better buy almost by the minute.

Eddie Howe spent £12m on Trippier as much for his crossing and dead ball acumen as his defensive attributes and when his side won a free kick fractionally outside the 18 yard area there was only one man for the job.

That set piece was awarded after a VAR review had overruled Craig Pawson’s initial decision to give a penalty after Calum Chambers sent the accelerating Joe Willock tumbling. If Villa were relieved it proved an extremely temporary reprieve.

Sure enough Trippier, captaining Newcastle in Jamaal Lascelles’s absence, stepped forward to power his kick through the wall and, courtesy of a slight deflection off Emiliano Buendia, on past a wrong footed